It's All Right
by JealousOfTheMoon
Summary: It's not how he thought it would be, but... Bookverse. Petercentric.


Credit: _I was watching PC for the fourth or fifth time, and the goodbye part has steadily frustrated me. They have Trumpkin and Lucy saying goodbye and Susan and Caspian, but all the while Peter and Edmund are bidding farewell to Trufflehunter and Glenstorm. Then I began to wonder—hmm. What if there were conversations, etc. that took place prior to the farewell and involved somewhat deeper issues than 'okay, here's the battle plan' or 'thanks, Truff, for keeping Nik from killing the Prince.' So here's part of my solution to that. It's prompted by the movie, but I consider it bookverse._

Clarification: _Christian themes are pretty strong here. I'm not advocating blind faith or saying that following Christ is a vague blundering around in darkness over cliffs. I'm underlining the fact that much of the Christian faith (particularly of the 'when I am weak, then I am strong') doesn't make sense to those who do not follow Christ (Aslan in the story). If anyone has further questions, please PM me._

**it's all right – **_by JotM_

"I've this distinct feeling that I should hate you," he says suddenly, glaring at the golden head. "I should be reasoning through this and coming to the conclusion that you're shoving me away—that you don't care—that you love Lu and Ed more—that I'm a miserable failure and you can't stand the sight of me. I think at least I should be devastated and hurt because I'll never be with you again." The Lion's eyes gleam silently in return. "You tell me that you'll be more with me there than you ever could be here, even though I may not see you. Then you say that in my loneliness I'll be less alone than I've ever been. I shouldn't believe you. I shouldn't. But…"

"My King," comes a strong voice very close at his ear. "I do not think He had the lion put on your sword pommel so that you could talk to it instead of Him." It was stern, but there was a hint of amusement buried in the unyielding tones.

"I've talked to Him," Peter says wearily. "It makes perfect sense when _He_ says it—or at least I can't seem to question it. But when I'm alone all the questions start rising, and—well, I've got to be able to think through it on my own, haven't I?"

"The constant swallowing and spitting back of one's own thoughts often makes the soul sick," the centaur replies calmly. "Perhaps that is why you find you struggle so much alone."

"And yet for some reason that's right where he's going to put me!" Peter bursts. "In England, where nobody knows him. Someone overheard us saying 'Aslan' once and asked us if we spoke Turkish. I'm going to be left with my own thoughts—back at a rubbish school where no one knows him—and I don't know, maybe it will make me sick, as you say. Every time I turn the idea of going back—forever—over in my mind, it comes out rotten," says Peter, "but I believe it will be good all the same—but that doesn't make _sense._"

"I believe you are beginning to see things more clearly after all," the other responds. "Anyone—Beast, Tree, or Man—who goes looking for sense—and I mean your small, son-of-Adam idea of sense—in everything that happens can only be happy or unhappy when it makes sense to be one way or the other. If I am not mistaken, in your work here you have found that in your weakness that you have so much more strength. Now you wonder how in your loneliness there is the possibility that you will not be alone. I was wrong. To think of such things is not a sickness, my King, though it may seem so." Peter thinks he's never seen anyone admit they were wrong with such a fierce expression of pure joy—or something deeper than mere happiness, as if the soul of the centaur had just tasted some fruit and found it as sweet as it anticipated. As if Glenstorm finds pleasure in being wrong. This too lacks sense, and a dam breaks within him.

"But what's the point of having a sense of sense if it never makes sense?" Peter bursts, wanting to bite his tongue off the minute the words escape. He prays Narnian centaurs don't learn the same rules of style as he has, for he's used the same word thrice in one sentence. He flushes and feels rather foolish, nothing like the High King and leader he wishes to be in this wise creature's eyes.

A ghost of a smile crosses Glenstorm's face. "If events were in the hands of you or I, perhaps they would make sense. They do not make sense for your comfort—because they are not in the hands or paws of beings so small as you or I." Peter opens his mouth, an expression of half-confusion, half-enlightenment written on his brow, but Glenstorm waves a hand to silence him. "Your pardon, my King, but I think it best not to speak over much on the subject. I will only add this, High King Peter: to many you are a legend, a Magnificent leader with strength and skill. But as you have learned here, and must come to know better in your own country, to yourself you must first and always be a Follower of Aslan, called to rest on the knowledge that all matters are in His paws."

"Perhaps He has not finished with my story," he murmurs to himself, sheathing his blade and giving the pommel a lingering tap. "Can it be—back there—that somehow he still holds things together?"

He thinks it can.

It's all right. It's not how he thought it would be—but, well, it's all right.

**.redux.**

Edmund comes to him one day, tight-lipped and dry-eyed (that is how his brother deals with these things). The adventure of their third journey has already been shared with much excitement, but now comes the news he has been waiting for—dreading. He doesn't think he has the wisdom of Glenstorm to carry the point through, much less the courage to tell his brother—oh, to tell him so much more.

Later he thinks he should have known better than to worry, because Edmund always saw these things much more clearly than he did.

"But I think I get it," Ed says after the four dreaded words ('I'm not going back') have been gotten over with, "Or I'm beginning to get it, anyway. It's—well, it's like you said—_it's all right_. I mean, it's not, because I don't know if I'll see Him again—but I don't think He's abandoned me. Us. It seems a wretched contradiction all the same—having this sense of losing something and yet gaining everything. It's dashed awkward, and I don't understand it. But do you know, Peter, the less I understand something—the less it makes _sense_—well, that's usually the moment I know that it's got some worth and beauty to it, or at least where Aslan is concerned."

"The story isn't over, you know," Peter says suddenly, relief filling him that he has found a way to say it after all. "Just because it ended for all the Narnians when we left them—I think He's still writing it, Ed."

"Of course he is, Pete," Edmund says in that once-infuriating tone he'd use back when Peter brought work home from school and Edmund understood Dad's explanations hours before Peter did.

"No, but—Ed—" Peter's throat goes very dry, and the blood is rushing through his head so that he can barely hear his own voice, but he _has_ to say it. He can't quite meet Edmund's eyes. "Ed, you know how Aslan told you that…well, that He has another name here?"

It wasn't how he thought it would be, or even how he thought it was. He'd thought it was all right.

"Ed—Ed, _I think I've found Him!"_

He finally looks at his brother's face and finds it lit with all the joy and hope of a Narnian sunrise.

It's better than all right.


End file.
